81 Responses

When I was a young lass of about 13, I cut out a picture of David Kirk from The Press & pinned it to my bedroom wall. He was holding the Webb Ellis trophy above his head after the Baby Black's triumphant campaign. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that here we'd all be - almost a quarter of a century later - still waiting for another man in black to hoist the cup aloft.

I kept that faded, yellowing newsprint photo on my wall for years, until it got kinda sad to look at. The picture may have long gone but the hope remains.

Silly, foolish me.

The other sad part about this RWC is that I would have been at every single Chch game... sure, I would have been working, but I would have been there. I'm still a bit gutted about that.

When I was a young lass of about 13, I cut out a picture of David Kirk from The Press & pinned it to my bedroom wall. He was holding the Webb Ellis trophy above his head after the Baby Black's triumphant campaign.

Kris, my story is completely different. I was fifteen. Far out. Kirk went on the aspirational portion of the wall above my desk, right next to the photo of the RX-7. Later on, I learned to dislike both the whine of a rotory engine, and right-wing economics.

Trust National to use the RWC smokescreen to push through this Attack on Democracy.We don't seem to have a thread on this yet. It makes a farce of breaking away from the Privy Council... "Don't like what the highest court in the land says? change the decision, under urgency"

I'm not sure it's an attack on democracy, but it sure is an attack on civil rights. Makes me wonder whether having dropped the Privy Council, it is more urgent than ever that NZ makes at least some moves toward a constitution. That's way more in need of changing than the bloody electoral system, which already seems to give carte blanch to the government on basically anything they want to do. It's always been sitting there as a dangerous omission in the NZ system.

But couldn't Parliament always ignore decisions of the old Privy Council? Agree that this development is very worrying, though. The whole Bor R could abolished overnight, if it suits any govt's agenda. The whole undefined number of crims running free (according to Mr Key) smells of the Reichstag Fire -Not only Godwinning, but also OT with no mention of RWC - so sue me

The NZ parliament can pass any law whatsoever (subject to a few grey areas around entrenchment).

(This is unlike the US and most European states, where legislation that contravenes the constitutional framework - US constitution, European law, ECHR - can be voided, either by the supreme courts or in the case of Europe by supranational courts).

What, if any, safeguards were put in place when we dropped the Privy Council. Surely there were some, it seems totally wrong to me that a simple majority in Parliament is enough to overturn a Supreme Court ruling. I, perhaps wrongly, thought that the Crown still had the upper hand and that the Crown was greater than Parliament and that the Governor General could ask the Supreme Court to revisit a decision and nothing more.Even if I was totally wrong and misunderstand the position surely the retrospective part of this move is illegal in some way?.If National ram this through then let's hope it is the last thing they do, ever.

We are not an absolute monarchy. The "Crown" is simply a term for the government acting as a legal entity, which comes back to being an instrument of parliament. The monarch hasn't vetoed a Bill since Queen Anne. If a G-G did get stroppy, the PM could sack him with one fax.

The Supreme Court has pretty much the same powers as the Privy Council did - it was just a change of personnel and location.

Basically, it's elective dictatorship. We should (as the Irish did in 1937) get ourselves a written constitution that sets limits. But politicians are opposed to it, for a range of reasons.

for instance, part of me is quite pleased that, when we finally get a truly left-wing government, they'll be able to pass a law in all-stages urgency to confiscate all property over $900k, close down the right-wing press and defer any further elections until the revolutionary situation permits. Ok, the last one would arguably take two laws, one to strip out the entrenchment and the other to defer the election

I agree with Rich's explanation but my conviction around written constitutions is less certain. I think our problem is still the size of the Executive relative to the Parliament. if we changed electoral systems and or reduced the size of the Parliament, this would be made worse.

Rich, I'm unclear, do written constitutions typically prohibit retrospective legislation explicitly or rather does the prohibition result from other rights being stronger?

ETA: Kris, great story, thanks. My hero of that cup was Kirwan, he was an old boy of our school and visited often. Actually, he remains a real role model, a man of genuine substance and character.

Whether this would apply in the current case is debatable. IANAL, you know, and I suspect you’d get multiple answers if you asked a few.

But also, rights against unlawful search and seizure are entrenched in the US constitution – alteration would require constitutional amendment – or persuading the Supreme Court into an alternate interpretation, which is probably easier.

Also, very few overseas jurisdictions practically allow a law to be passed in two weeks with only a simple majority in a unicameral parliament. Many of them also have other locks – CERA could never pass in the US, for instance: (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nondelegation_doctrine)

Or even a return to a re-jigged form of legislative Council. Qld ("The Police State" of the 70's) is the only other Australasian govt to have a unicameral parliament - and the reign of Bjelke Joh illustrates the fun and games which can result

In 1987 my father was principal of Hato Petera College on the North Shore. Although only a small school (circa 230 pupils), it had six rugby fields so was a natural choice for some of the smaller nations to choose for rugby practice.

Back in the day, you didn’t get hoards of fans descending on a practice session, and one day there were about four teams practicing. I can’t remember all of the teams, but one was definitely Romania (good to see them back down here, BTW). The principal’s house backed onto the lower fields, so we turned the couch around, opened the ranch slider, and watched them all practice. It was cool to be so close.

After the tournament, my brother was buying a bag at a bag shop in Queen St. A couple of members of the Pumas were in the shop and also in a quandary – they’d run out of money and needed to sell some gear. He bartered with one and purchased a team kit bag and an actual test jersey (signed by the erstwhile owner). Number 13 IIRC, and I think he still has it somewhere.

Nah, that’s what Graeme Edgeler’s for. I’ll stick to Solar Power, Networked media and such ;-)But I still think everybody, including non lawyers, should be looking hard at this, whether they understand or not. It’s amazing that te Herald can stir up more vitriol about sex education than an abuse of power on this scale.

At the games, most of the anger is directed at Cooper. And here lies the crux of the problem, in my opinion. Cooper is persona non grata with his smart-arse baiting of Richie McCaw. This behaviour is the rugby equivalent of farting in a cathedral. Cooper needs to clear the air.

So who would you like to run the country Steve?Elected politiciansUn-elected lawyers (Judges) who we have trouble sacking Bunch of ancients who wrote a constitution that we need a bunch of the above lawyers to tweek to keep it up to-dateorAnother bunch of lawyers in another country telling us how to run thingsAnd I might say that other country would allow the so called "illegal" video recordings to be presented in Court